A Bronx woman watching “Criminal Minds” was nearly killed when a bullet whizzed through her wall — and the Correction Department captain who fired the errant shot escaped criminal charges despite attempts to cover it up, sources told The Post on Wednesday.
“It would have hit me in the stomach. He could have killed me!” nurse’s aide Andrea Lewis said of the April 30 shooting.
Eric Lynch, a Bronx Central Booking supervisor, tried to escape through a window, but retreated back into his apartment when he saw cops approaching, sources said.
He then placed furniture in front of the bullet hole in the wall to hide it from cops.
Lynch, 52, was charged with three felonies — criminal possession of a weapon, reckless endangerment and tampering with physical evidence.
But District Attorney Robert Johnson’s office dropped the case before his arraignment, saying the whole thing was an accident.
“So because he works for the Department of Correction, it’s OK for him to nearly kill someone?” Lewis fumed. “It doesn’t matter if it was an accident. Charges should be pressed.”
Lewis said she was lying in bed in her Hicks Street apartment in Williamsbridge at around 7:30 p.m. when the shot was fired. She said she was in the path of the bullet just a few minutes earlier.
“I was just standing there five minutes earlier,” Lewis said.
“The bullet [hit] just an arm’s length away.”
The Bronx DA’s Office punted the case to the city Department of Correction for an internal investigation. A spokeswoman for Johnson defended the decision to not prosecute.
“The evidence presented to the Bronx District Attorney’s Office indicated that the Correction Officer’s discharge of his firearm was an accident,” said Terry Raskyn. “As to his behavior subsequent to the discharge, that is a matter to be dealt with by his employer, the Department of Correction.”
Additional reporting by Kevin Sheehan